Customer Reviews

A Dance to the Music of Time

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A Dance to the Music of Time is a series of twelve novels by the English author Anthony Powell, a fictionalized version of his own life that invites comparisons to Proust's In Search of Lost Time. The running time of seven hours for the adaptation, therefore, is not surprising given the enormous scope of the project, which charts the life of its semi-autobiographical protagonist, Nick Jenkins, from his schoolboy days through to his old age in the burgeoning cultural revolution of the 1960s. This series was first shown on TV in 1997 when I was living in Australia, and so I have had the opportunity to watch it three times already. I can therefore say with some authority that this is perhaps the best literary adaptation that I have ever seen. The first episode can be a little off-putting, as characters seem to keep bumping into each other at random, but you soon realize that this is not a silly device on the part of the novelist, but an accurate reflection of the incestuous nature of the upper class in England at this time (or really, any time). The production is sumptuous, and the acting is universally good. Stand out performances include Simon Russell Beale, the victim/villain of the piece (he will be fixed in my mind forever as the definite image of Widmerpoole) and, coming later in the series, Miranda Richardson in brilliant form as Pamela Flitton, a twisted maneater. Richardson, who too often gets cast in shrill, nasty roles, is in top form here, chewing up the scenery with seductive viciousness. You don't really need to read the novels to follow what is going on (although I recommend them highly), and the first episode, simply because it has to set everything up, demands a certain level of attention. But overall I love this adaptation, and I'm glad that I can finally own it on DVD.

A valiant effort, but a forlorn hope: Anthony Powell's wonderful 12-volume series "A Dance to the Music of Time" simply cannot be told, nor its essence captured, in eight hours: briskness is antithetical to Powell's purpose. The plot is consistently interesting throughout the books, but the atmosphere, personality and social history conveyed in them are really what make the books worth reading: they are very nearly everything. These things take time to make themselves be felt, yet this production scurries through the story like a blinkered Atalanta, never stopping to pick up the golden apples strewn at her feet. Inevitable comparisons have been made to "Brideshead Revisited," whose author was a great fan of Powell's work (hardly surprising, since Powell's prose is often reminiscent of Waugh's), but whereas the "Brideshead" series spent nearly eleven hours to dramatize a single 350-page book (which works out to a leisurely 32 pages per hour), this newer series attempts to dramatize twelve 300-page books in a scant eight hours -- that's approximately 450 pages an hour, a pace that would cross the eyes of the world's fastest speed reader. While Powell's tone and concerns are closely related to those of "Brideshead"'s, this series has more in common with Evelyn Wood than Evelyn Waugh. It is hard to imagine trying to follow the plot of this series without having first read the books . . . more than once.

Still, the production is often quite beautiful (though there are a few scenes that look as if they were shot on the cheap); the acting is generally excellent, with a few really wonderful performances -- Sir John Gielgud zips through his role amusingly; so does Edward Fox, who pops up several times in the first few hours; as Charles Stringham in the war years, Paul Rhys is particularly memorable and has what is probably the best scene in the entire series. The author's alter-ego, Nicholas Jenkins, is played by three utterly dissimilar actors; he somehow manages to grow several inches shorter upon leaving school and then abruptly ages 30 to 35 years about six and a half hours into it. As the odious, ubiquitous Widmerpool, Simon Russell Beale is the only main character to play his role from beginning to end. It's a lovely, funny performance. It must be noted, however, that he is hardly believable as a 17 year old and looks even more bizarre in the final hour, as he capers about in an obvious rubber baldpate, but these errors cannot reasonably be scored against him.

The greatest shame, I suppose, is that after this expensive, lengthy (but not lengthy enough) and unsatisfactory dud, there is probably no longer any chance that these books will ever be given a proper dramatization.

This is perhaps my favorite set of novels. Given that, I was very skeptical as to the dramatization of Powell's 12 book "cycle." It is brilliant! HOWEVER: since there are at least 20 personae to keep up with, Disc One is almost entirely squib outlines. Think of these as random memories from Nick Jenkin's youth that are robustly completed in the series' remaining five and a half hours. For an additional bonus, read the books afterward - they are perhaps the best use of the written English vocabulary. Pullulate and palimpsest - what great words!

The first 2/3 of this DVD are quite good, though there are major scenes from the books that get only cursory "check the box" treatment here. That's largely the problem with this--it makes a valiant effort, but I think ultimately fails in capturing the depth and hugely comedic nature of these books. The last portion of the film--after the war-- is quite disappointing--a different actor now plays the narrator & some of the characters appear to have aged dramatically (at least one with very bad makeup) while others haven't aged at all. Bad choice. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this set of DVD's because the last portion of the film is so bad.

Adapting all twelve volumes of Anthony Powell's Proustian roman fleuve must have been no easy task, but this 1997 multi-part adaptation by Hugh Whitmore just doesn't come off, despite its excellent cast and production values. There's none of the intellectual soliloquoys of the narrator, Nick Jenkins, that made the books hang together, and the incidents here seem drab and disconnected; it becomes almost impossible to see why certain incidents stand out for the characters more than others, and there's no sense of narrative drive at all. The story encompasses three different milieux that seem widely disconnected--the world of Mayfair parties of the 20s and 30s; the military doings of the war years; and the vaguely leftist literary sphere of the 50s and early 60s--and none of them seem to have much to do with one another. Characters keep drifting back in to the life of Jenkins at the oddest places to remark on the coincidence of their meeting and to de-brief him about their and the other characters' doings, which seems more and more forced as the series runs on.

This is one of those casts where almost everyone working in theatre in the British Isles seems to make an appearance, from Eileen Atkins to John Gielgud to Zoe Wanamaker. Four different actors play Nicholas Jenkins, adding much to the overall sense of confusion (especially since they look nothing like one another): the actor who plays him the longest, James Purefoy, is superb at conveying Nick's likability and his blandness. (It's hard to believe Purefoy, who has exhibited such virile charisma as Rawdon Crawley and Mark Anthony elsewhere, can seem so neutered here.) Simon Russell Beale has received much just praise for his performance as the series' most memorable character and anti-hero, the oily Kenneth Widmerpool. He is upstaged--unfortunately--only by Miranda Richardson, turning in yet another jawdroppingly hammy performance as Widmerpool's eventual wife Pamela. There's a kind of fascination to Richardson's work here (as in DANCE WITH A STRANGER and SLEEPY HOLLOW); she holds nothing back and "acts" all over the place, demolishing almost every scene she's in.

In 1997, British televiewers watched a 4-part miniseries titled "A Dance to the Music of Time," based on 12 novels by Anthony Powell. This 415-minute series is now available in a boxed set of 4 DVDs from Acorn Media.


It follows the career of Nicolas Jenkins (played by James D'Arcy in the first three episodes) from his college days in the period between world wars to the 1960s. The strange title represents the dance-like meetings and re-meetings of the central characters as the political, artistic and social life in England undergoes radical changes. (The cast of characters is huge and it is very hard to keep track of them.)


I did not like the first episode for the most part, since I found nearly all of the characters uninteresting and not very likable. The one exception was the overweight, pathetic Widmerpool (Simon Russell Beale), who can't keep up physically or socially with the others--but he is the one who rises to positions of power while the others drink, marry the wrong people, or try to do the right thing while the rest couldn't care less.


Things improved for me by the second segment. Along the way, what there is of a coherent story is enlivened by memorably outrageous characters like Pamela Flitton (Miranda Richardson, of "Black Adder" fame), who manages to be all of the Marx Brothers at once in putting her betters in their place. Richardson's performance alone is worth the price of the set.


I cannot find out why the main character and his wife are played by different actors in the last segment, since all the other members of the cast are aged to show the passing of time. John Standing is a fine actor, but the changeover is disconcerting.


There are cast biographies as a modest bonus feature.

"A Dance to the Music of Time," (1997) is a four-part British Broadcasting Company television serial based on 20th century English author Anthony Powell's 12-volume literary series of the same name: (the initial volumes have since been combined into four `movements,' as the publisher calls them.) The author always denied that "A Dance" was a roman a clef; still, even to me, many characters resemble figures well-known at the time, and more knowledgeable readers would probably recognize even more. Also, the narrator, Nick Jenkins's life, closely parallels the writer's.

Powell's written series must be considered one of the masterpieces of 20th century British fiction: it is little-known today, and doesn't get the respect it deserves, perhaps because, in addition to being closely observed and intricately plotted, it can be hilarious. Book and tv series more or less parallel Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited," book and BBC-tv series, in their drawing room wit, the social class and lifestyles of their characters, and the between-the wars period of time in which they're largely based, but "Brideshead," of course, particularly the tv serial, is much better-known and admired; it's probably more enjoyable. The filmic "Dance" carries the burden of those 12 books, published over 20 years real time, more than 3,000 pages in total, at least 400 characters, in its relatively brief running time. Each book gets only around 40 minutes. Script was written by Hugh Whitemore, an able playwright and screenwriter, but if you don't already know the books, you will probably have trouble following it. It's got its advantages, however. Among other things, the Beeb threw a lot of money at the screen for "A Dance." It boasts a star-studded cast, wonderful clothes, jewels, cars and interiors, and was made on location. The big ballroom scenes feature not only crowds of beautifully garbed extras, but historically correct bands and orchestras making music to swoon for. Furthermore, as it was made for BBC4, the Beeb's experimental arm, it boasts the occasional full-frontal female nudity, too.

Part I begins with our narrator, Nick Jenkins, at what the English oddly call a public school, while we would call it private: Eton, shortly after the end of the first world war. We meet his two best friends, Charles Stringham and Peter Templer. Also Kenneth Widmerpool, outcast at the school, with whom they will continuously come into contact later. Jenkins is played by the handsome young James D'Arcy, who has only become a bigger star over the years. His Uncle Giles is played by Edward Fox: Simon Russell Beale does a remarkable job as Widmerpool. As Jenkins moves on to Oxford, we'll meet Allan Bennett as Sillery, one of the more powerful dons there.

In Part II, we suddenly meet James Purefoy as the somewhat older Jenkins; also, a 95-year old John Gielgud playing the best-known novelist of the age, the supposed-to-be 60 year old St. John Clarke. Zoe Wanamaker plays Audrey McLintock, a mover and shaker in the artistic circles Jenkins frequents. The depression has hit; many characters have moved leftward politically, some all the way to the Communist Party; Widmerpool has begun his irresistible ascent to power, prestige and wealth. World War II is casting its shadow forward. But, by and large, most of the younger characters are having enjoyable, busy sex lives, running off with each other's husbands, wives, and, perhaps, goats....

Part III finds us in wartime. The insufferable Widmerpool continues his rise in the world, and comes to dominate the show more and more. The war seems, to this viewer, to aid him in dispatching a couple of his old enemies. He will marry Stringham's beautiful but very "difficult" niece Pamela Flitton, well-played by the beautiful young Miranda Richardson. Jenkins establishes his literary career, and meets the girl of his dreams, Isabella, of a family based either on the well-known literary Longfords, or Mitfords: I'd guess the Longfords, but you'd have to know more than I do about these people to be sure.

Part IV is the weakest of the series. The makers have fooled around with Powell's timeline, trying to stretch things out to more contemporaneous times, and have also suddenly foisted John Standing, as Jenkins, and Joanna David, as Isabella, upon us: nor does Standing look much like his predecessor in the part. All parties concerned have a good time with the craziness of the 1960's; rebellious youth, hippies and swamis make hay. Widmerpool has achieved wealth, power, and prestige; he's been made a life peer - as has Sillery -- and chancellor of a major university. But has he achieved contentment?

If you can't get enough of this sort of thing that the British do so well, then here's something more to enjoy.

As is the case with recent HBO series, "Dance" proves that great talents now work in TV as they did in the 1950s. This is as interesting as anything on B'Way or at the local Rialto. This series has great acting and great material; it has been both professionally produced and artfully directed. The Powell novels have been well adapted to TV, although readers no doubt will miss their favorite parts of the multi-volume novel that has only one peer in modern letters, that by Marcel Proust. This four-part series could just as well have eight, ten or twelve parts. The acting is uniformly satisfying. The film , although highly entertaining, is a marvelous introduction to 20th century British mores. The boys from Eton grow to be men under the Blitz, their friendships and connections carry them along toward triumph and destruction. Widmerpool plays the unloved and unlovable grasper, the most despised sort in English letters, ambition being both a sign of poor breeding and bad taste, while his aristocratic friends muddle along in a world increasingly unwelcome as it is unwelcoming. Powell is the least-known of his generation's literary geniuses, but this long-forgotten masterpiece has finally been given the adaptation it rightly deserves.

It is a picture of beautiful Miranda Richardson that got me to watch this series. Although I like British classics, these series have started on the high note, but ended with disappointment. I expected a main character of Nicholas Jenkins, our narrator, a sensitive, cultured man in tune with lives of the upper class Londoners, who strikes his lifelong friendships with main protaginists of this story during his college days in Oxford. It is thru these friendships that we get to know the lives of the British rich and their struggles to maintain money, positions of power and not to mention marriages in the high society England. It seems as if these carefully arranged social contracts all seem to dissolve quickly and inexplicably where women are leaving their rich spouses and none of them (except for Jean Temple, Jenkins' first love and a sister of his close friend) manages to marry up; they all seem to marry down, or come back to their hapless, abusive and supresive husbands in order to remain rich, kept women. It seems that theme for the plot is defined thru famous paintings. One of them being "A Dance of the Music of Time" that describes four circles of human life: poverty, labor, riches and downfall. All of our protagonists go thru all four of them. Particular exception of beautiful and unhappy Pamela Flinton whose tragic life is marked by her attachment to the painting by Madigliani (which we never see, but we know it exists - and owner(s) of the painting - Pamela and her uncle - seem to have unfortunes follow them as they did the famous painter). The last part of the series is particularly disappointing as we are watching characted 10 years after the WWII. They are all worn out and look 20-30 years older than expected. Main character Jenkins is replaced with a different actor who suddenly seems more of a bore and weakling that a sensitive young man we saw in the first four parts. There are many paralels between these series and "Brideshead Revisited". In spite of wonderful British actors in these series, I would say that if you are going to spend hours watching generations thru WWI and WWII era in England, you will enjoy more "Brideshead Revisited" than "A Dance to the Music of Time".

I'm not even finished watching the series. I am halfway through the 3rd DVD, but since the first one I've been left feeling cheated. Definitely I see how it has been compared to Brideshead Revisited, but this one is just a tease when it finishes each Part. Each time I finish watching Brideshead I'm satisfied. Watching each Part of Dance is like getting a basic outline without any filled in information, unsatisfying - I'm left hanging. Thank goodness they included a "cheat sheet", but I'm still having a slight problem figuring out who each character is and where they fit in.
After reading other reviews, I really dread coming to the part where Nick ages and they replace him with another actor. What a bummer!!